never used cfdisk before, small HDD as well

[ejames82]

i have a rather old hp pavillion that i would like to prevent from becoming useless. the hard drive in it is very small. it has a version of linux, probably ubuntu, already installed, because grub loads at bootup. being such a small hard drive, i have decided to install damn small linux instead, but i don't know how to use cfdisk, the native dsl partitioner.
dsl is running off the cdrom. it's not installed on the hard drive.
i became root by putting this in terminal:

sudo -s

then i accessed cfdisk by using this:

cfdisk /dev/hda


the cfdisk utility came on screen with the following info:

disk drive: /dev/hda
size 545513472 bytes 545MB
heads: 255 sectors per track: 63 cylinders: 66

hda1 primary linux 82.26 MB
hda2 primary linux ext2 172.74 MB
hda3 primary linux ext2 287.89 MB


to make a long story short, is this hard drive big enough for damn small linux?, and are these partitions adequate?
i could sure use some guidance using this utility. i don't honestly know which partition to use as root, which to make swap, which to make home, and which to make bootable.
going from the graphical user interface that ubuntu offers to cfdisk is quite a change. could someone lend some expertise? thanks.

[rokytnji]

You have plenty of space for a Damn Small Linux Install. Follow the tutorial below for cfdisk. You might want to wipe the hardrive clean first with a KILLDISK floppy first, (the author suggests Dban but killdisk will work also for this)

Frugal Installation from Live CD

[rokytnji]

In the tutorial it says to make swap space twice the size of ram. You will be using just 55 mb for Damn Small Linux to boot and Operate. You don't have a lot of Hardrive space, so when making swap you can probably get away with the same amount of mb your ram is rated at unless it is only a 32mb ram lappy. If 32mb or even 64 mb you have enough room to make swap file as big as 128mb.

This gives you a little room left over for changes you save on the rest of hardrive later. Good Luck

[ejames82]

rokytnji,
for some reason killdisk stalled. i also have that program, plus one called mhdd on a disk called "hirens boot cd" neither version worked and neither did mhdd to clear the hard drive. they all locked up, or were taking way too long. over half an hour and still at 0%.
i supposedly was successful in installing dsl, but grub took 45 minutes to load and still was not done, so i aborted. i don't know how long, if at all, that it would have actually taken to finish loading. not worth using.
i tried a different hard drive that was questionable at first, but after installing dsl on it, and using it for over two hours, i think it's a functional hard drive. plus it's over 20gb. plenty of space to work with. all worked out in the end.
thanks.